Board of Aldermen Page 2
September 27, 2016
are right here living in Nashua who have established businesses like Zeco, an applications business in
the Millyard or Sally’s Market or who are working for companies or not, people who are here now. If you
think about 13% of the population being foreign born, that’s about 8,000 people in Nashua. We want to
speak to them and we want to say that you are welcome, we are glad you are here and we want to
include you. Number two, | think we want to speak to people that are inside the United States and are
here. The former Mayor of Nashville, which has taken a lot of welcoming initiatives and has become a
very vibrant place, Nashville, TN. He said it is a complement when someone from elsewhere in the
country or somewhere else in the world, maybe Mysore, India or somewhere else. Someone moves to
Nashua and chooses this place, that’s a compliment to us because we want new residents and we want
a growing population and an expanding economy and a growing job base. We are also speaking to
people outside of the country. We are trying to encourage those with contacts outside, Rivier University
and many of the residents that we have here to encourage their friends and their family to also locate
here. Finally, we are speaking to the institutions that we have here in the city that are very supportive of
our efforts to include new Nashuans. | am talking about Rivier University, St. Joe’s Hospital, the United
Way, the Chamber of Commerce; we are trying to say to them that we agree with what you are doing
and we think that’s a good thing and we want to be part of it. On the converse, what message would we
be sending if we reject the Welcoming America Initiative? This has been adopted without controversy in
Manchester and Concord. We, the most diverse community by far in New Hampshire, would serve to
gain more by being a welcoming community than any of the others and yet if the message went out that
well, we are the one city in New Hampshire who just rejected the idea of being part of the Welcoming
America Initiative and the message goes out to all of the groups that | spoke of which is a very negative
message and one that will hurt our long-term future. As | mentioned, the origin of the Welcoming
America Initiative, the idea of joining it did come from the United Way and Chamber of Commerce to their
credit. The United Way has been in the community since 1930 and they are not a partisan organization
in any stretch of the imagination. They have raised millions of dollars for charitable organizations around
their entire region. They have been running for two years based upon a grant awarded to them by the
New Hampshire Charitable Foundation and others, the One Greater Nashua Initiative which is basically
just a parallel to what we are proposing here. Also the Chamber of Commerce has advanced this and
there is no way that the Chamber of Commerce is a partisan organization and the reason that | raise the
issue of partisanship is | think that some people misunderstood the origin of this and thought that it was
some effort to endorse one of the parties or positions of one of the parties, specifically the democrats.
The Chamber of Commerce takes a pro-business position which in their best judgement serves the best
interest of their constituents, their members and the Nashua community. Some of those positions tend to
be the position that the democrats support and probably more of them tend to be the positon that
Republicans are for. They are not a partisan organization in any stretch of the imagination. We also
have received letters of support from St. Joseph’s Hospital which has been in the community for 100
years serving the Nashua based people with quality healthcare for all of that time. They are not engaged
in partisan politics but they strongly support this. We received a letter from Salt Lake City, UT; which is
hardly a blue state or a bastion of the Democrats. They have joined the Welcoming America Initiative
and have been part of it for a long time and they see great, positive aspects for them. | think given the
long history of immigration here in Nashua, there are immigrants from Ireland, Greece, Canada, and
Lithuania who built the mill, built the city and without them really what would Nashua be? Now we have
immigrants from other countries, Asia and other parts of the world and we still need them and they can
still contribute and they are still welcome and we should still make that clear. | did offer or suggest a
possible amendment because a couple of the members of the committee on _ the
Personnel/Administrative Affairs Committee had asked the question what are we really committing
ourselves to because the Welcoming America Initiative website is quite extensive and so with the
assistance of the legal department | wrote up an amendment which would simply make that a little
clearer because upon joining the initiative we are simply required to or asked to sign a five statement,
one page letter which says that we will advance a resolution or proclamation and we will find ways to
institutionalize welcoming efforts. We are already doing this. | mean the Chamber of Commerce, One
Greater Nashua, the United Way; we are already engaged in that. To join the cohort of cities and
counties, appoint municipal official staff contact which is easily accomplished, participate in three phone
conference calls per year and participate in annual in-person meeting with other welcoming cities and
